Do you let your kids win at board games?

I will never forget the day I beat a five-year-old
at Chutes and Ladders. I'd been babysitting for a family and the youngest daughter and I were playing the game. We
played so many times I wanted to plunge myself out the little girl's second story bedroom window. I kept letting her
win, and decided I'd win once so that she really appreciated winning and didn't get suspcious that I was letting her
win.

Just then her mother came in and was visibly disturbed that I'd won the game. Later, she told me they
let their kids win the games. I can't tell you how ridiculous I felt, I didn't want to beat a five-year-old, I
was trying to make the game more realistic for her. But the mother didn't give me a chance to explain and was obviously
annoyed with the situation.

When my husband and I play games with our kids we don't generally 'let them
win', the games we play are simple games of chance and they get plenty of turns winning simply based on their ability
to count and avoid pitfalls. If my son is losing our game over and over I'll sometimes make sure he wins and then other
times I just want the pain of the neverending Candyland game end by stacking the deck so the torture will end.

So I've been thinking about this a lot, why don't I just let my kids win everytime? Isn't it good for their
self-esteem? First of all, my kids would notice if we let them win everytime and they'd start to realize we were
letting them. How is that good for self esteem. Also, learning how to lose as gracefully as you win is an important
lesson before they start playing games with their peers who are definitely not going to let them win.

Besides all that, I rule at Uno and there is no way some
seven-year-old is going to beat me.

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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)

This is something I've also been struggling with. My ex husband and I parent our daughter very differently and he believes it's better to always let her win. I feel like it's ok sometimes, but usually it's however the "cards fall".

Latety, it's become an issue because she's getting use to the fact that he always lets her win...she's actually begun pouting and crying if she loses. It's gotten to the point where she'll actually stop playing the game if it's not going her way and it drives me crazy!

Yes, self-esteem is fragile for a 6 year-old but there has to be some balance. You don't want a little monster overflowing with self-esteem if it means they can't have some normal interaction with other kids. Losing is a part of life and that's as valuable a lesson as anything else they should be learning from us.

I've thought a lot about this, too, though I'm a long way from having to deal with it in my own household.

On the one hand, I remember the thrill of feeling like I was really good at something when I beat the elderly neighbor lady who babysat me after school sometimes at Scrabble. Now I can't believe that I was really better than an adult at the age of seven. Yet, I felt like I was truly successful at something that was a grown-up thing. On the other hand, I do think that kids need to learn that they won't always win at everything they do (I know that when I played cards with my dad, he didn't cheat in my favor--he's the competitive sort!).

No one wins all the time in a world that is fair, and kids need to understand that. So, I think it's appropriate to make sure that a child doesn't *always* lose (particularly when playing a "grown-up" game), but neither should he or she *always* win.

I try to give my kids a pretty fair balance of wins and losses. This isn't hard, because I'm not really that good at games. And a lot of their games are just luck. If I've won a few hands at Uno, I might deliberately compete a little less hard on the next few, and I've been known to stack the deck in my son's favor to end an endless game. But kids need to learn to be gracious winners and good losers, and to do that they need to experience both, and watch adults experience both.

I don't let them win. But I do guide them through a game, if it requires mental skill. Games of chance, though, are just that, and why shouldn't they learn that they can't control chance? No one feels stupid, no one hates themselves.

The whole point in our house is that playing games is *fun*. The goal isn't to win, even though that's a great feeling. The goal is to be together and to have fun.

I don't have kids of my own, but as a child therapist and an avid babysitter, I thought I might chime in.

During preschool, most kids don't care about winning or losing. Unless you frame it that way, your child is going to get more enjoyment from the game by just playing, and it's okay to let them win all the time.

However, once your child is school age and beyond, it's important that her or she learn how to follow rules. It is especially bad for the child to know that you changed the rules for them. This implies your child doesn't have to follow rules and what not. Negotiating the rules is a good idea, as long as you two can agree on them ahead of time. Such as, "You've never played this game, so you get to take an extra turn." etc. etc. Play the game according to the rules, or the agreed upon rules, and stick to them. It opens things up for a great conversation about how winning or losing doesn't make someone who they are.

Are you saying you were cheating to let the child win? All my different copies of chutes and ladders don't have any choices at all so how could you choose to let them win without going against the rules?

Doesn't that compound the issue? Not only are you letting them win at a game where they make no choices but you are also cheating in order to do it.

That's not what I teach my kids. We play to have fun and winning is secondary. If my kids have issues with losing we generally pull out a cooperative game where we either win or lose together.

I'm talking more about stacking the deck in Candy Land or letting them have an extra turn because they're learning or whatever. Not all the time but sometimes because my four year old gets really sad. My seven year old doesn't require this method at all anymore so it seems to have worked.

Oh Brent, sometimes people's "opinions" come out as judgements and I just don't understand why that is. Oh well.

I play a game with my kids nearly every day. They very rarely beat me, yet still want to play every day. Why? Because they know why they lost, and they want to get better.

Part of it are the games we play. We play german-style board games, or "eurogames", which feature shorter play times, less randomness and lots of choices. If a child can make a choice instead of, say, going to the color they drew or rolling a die or spinning a wheel, they have more of a mental investment in the game. (My kids that I play with, btw, are 7 and 9 now, but have been playing since they were 5 and 7.)

Play games with choices. You'll have more fun. Some examples:

Settlers of Catan (has choices, but also has dice)

Gulo Gulo (great game for even smaller children, my 4yr old has won more times than I have, and that's WITH me trying)

Ticket to Ride

Rumis

Blokus

Through the Desert

Carcassonne

I encourage all parents to try one of these games with their children. You'll all be the happier for it.

I think that Blokus is a little trying for kids, because of the rule that you lose when you can't place any more pieces. That seems to be pretty frustrating for younger kids, in my experience.

I would add Cartagena to the list of good games to play with kids - it's sort of like Candyland with actual strategy. A nice feature of this and of Blokus is that you don't have to be able to read to play.

I guess this is a little off topic, but if you play games like Candyland and Chutes and Ladders with two pawns each, instead of one, it gives the child a choice to make each time they roll/spin. Winnin or losing then becomes, at least to a small extent, a matter of skill vs pure luck.

I avoided games where I would always win against my kids in favor of games where they had some chance at least, until a certain age level. But no, I would never "let" a child win. It is cheating, it encourages spoiled behaviour, and winning isn't what games are about. If you want your kids to always win, play patty-cake.

I never beat my mother at a game of checkers until I was a teen. I thought she was a checkers genius, but it turned out I was just bad. After I learned to play and finally defeated her, I was SO disappointed that I accused her of not trying.

I play a fun game with memory elements called Chicken Cha Cha Cha (from Rio Grande Games) with my four year old. Instead of letting her win, I just make it harder for me to win. I give her three guesses each turn to pick the right tile, and give myself only one.

This keeps the game close. It gives her satisfaction because I am really trying, and me satisfaction to see her do well and enjoy the process.

I have a 4 year old boy and 6 year old girl. We play games all the time.

Most games that we played with the kids prior to pre-school were games of chance (Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, etc) but others like Memory required some skill. In games of chance we just let the game determine the winner so sometimes the parent wins and sometimes the child wins. We encouraged the experience of playing a game together and not the result (ie winning/losing). This has helped them associate playing games as a positive experience.

As they get older then the games get more advanced. My son will pull out Connect 4, Checkers, or Chess and want to play and I will help him learn the game while playing. Sometimes I let him win and sometimes I win these games but the main point is in teaching him how to play - the basic moves/things to watch for.

Now that my daughter can read we can teach her lots of 'adult' games. A great game for young readers is TransAmerica since it allows them to use strategy but other players cannot actively 'hurt' another player. This makes for a friendly and competitive game that anyone can win. She loves to be the banker in Monopoly Jr or Life and this helps her to feel more grown up. We modify some games (Clue, Ticket to Ride, etc) so that she can play them and it is challenging for us as well. However, we do not let her win any games now since she is old enough to learn how to be a good sport whether she wins or loses the game.

I can't wait until they are both old enough to play adult games and I hope that they will love the experience as much as my wife and I do.

My kids are 7 and 11 and both have been playing games with the adults since they were 5 years old. We play Euro (or German) games that feature fun themes and choice rather than just random, mechanistic rolling and moving. I never "let" them win. When they win, and they often do, they win because they've played better. Kids need to learn to win and lose graciously and playing games with their family is the perfect place to learn these lessons.

The result? Both kids are very good sports and enjoy the playing rather than just the winning. My daughter can beat any of my adult gaming friends in even the most complex strategy games and in a few years I have no doubt my son will be able to also.

I wholeheartedly recommend the games listed in Greg's e-mail above. These games make playing with your kids fun and challenging for all rather than fun for the kids but tedious and simplistic for the adults.

My daughter and I play games often. She is 7 and loves games. I do not " let " her win. Since she was 4 I have always played to win. However, that being said I do help her with strategy and show her her mistakes at times when she makes them. I will often say "are you sure you want to make that move?". I will point out the reprocussions of a bad move. I am not trying to build self esteem by letting her win. I am trying to build a gamer. A gamer who wins and loses graciously. A gamer who thinks and strategizes. I am trying to build a gamer who will be a great game partner now and in the future. I say now because she now can beat me at many games with out much help at all. I have noticed to she is getting good at learning a game from the initial explanation too. My son is now turning 3. I will start the same process with him soon too.

TheTalkies

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